User Meeting 2016 Programme for Dyalog '16 Sunday 9 October – Thursday 13 October 2016 User Meeting 2016 User Meeting 2016 Welcome to the Dyalog User Meeting 2016 in Glasgow All the presentation/workshop materials will be available on the Dyalog '16 webpage at http://www.dyalog.com/user-meetings/dyalog16.htm. As usual, we will be recording and publishing as many presentations as we can (as a presenter you will always have the opportunity to review the recording and approve publication). We would like to ask for your help in ensuring that question and answer sessions are also recorded; you can help by not asking questions unless you are in possession of a microphone. If your question cannot wait until the Q&A session that concludes each presentation, or if the presenter specifically states that questions are welcome throughout, please move to the microphone at the front of the Auditorium (and then wait until asked before proceeding). Naturally, everyone from Dyalog Ltd will be happy to answer questions relating to their topics at any time during the user meeting. For practical information, see the back cover If you have any questions not related to APL, please ask Karen. User Meeting 2016 Table of Contents A Message from Dyalog's CEO ................................................................... 2 Team Dyalog at Dyalog '16 .......................................................................... 2 Your Feedback ............................................................................................ 3 Birds of a Feather Discussion Groups ......................................................... 4 Stormwind Simulator .................................................................................... 5 50 Years of APL .......................................................................................... 6 Schedule: Sunday 9 October ....................................................................... 7 Schedule: Monday 10 October .................................................................... 9 Schedule: Tuesday 11 October ................................................................. 11 Schedule: Wednesday 12 October ............................................................ 13 Schedule: Thursday 13 October ................................................................ 15 Abstracts: Workshops ................................................................................ 17 Abstracts: Dyalog Presentations ................................................................ 22 Abstracts: User Presentations ................................................................... 25 Abstracts: 50 Years of APL Presentations ................................................. 30 Practical Information .................................................................................. 37 User Meeting 2016 A Message from Dyalog's CEO A very warm welcome to our annual user meeting and to Scotland! 2016 is a special year for APL where we can celebrate the first 50 years of having APL available to solve interesting and complex problems. Together with the British APL Association, BAA, we have set aside all of Wednesday and the morning of Thursday for a trip down memory lane followed by a look to the future. The programme includes presenters who have been involved with APL since its discovery, presenters who have wielded it with great success over the years and also complete newcomers who have just been introduced to APL. At Dyalog we really look forward to this celebration of APL and we have tasked ourselves and those of our users who are going to present their recent work with a somewhat tighter schedule than usual to fit into the remaining time. Thanks to Stormwind and Optima Systems we have a special Viking Challenge this year. You are invited to try out the Stormwind simulator on a 3D platform provided by Simotion. We wish you a good user meeting and hope you will enjoy yourself and that most importantly you will leave Scotland with a renewed network and that one good idea, insight or contact that will mean a difference to you and your organisation in the future! Gitte Christensen Team Dyalog at Dyalog '16 This year, Dyalog Ltd is represented by 19 members of the current team. Meet Team Dyalog at http://www.dyalog.com/meet-team-dyalog.htm. The Dyalog forums (http://forums.dyalog.com/) are regularly visited by Dyalog Ltd staff as well as other stalwarts of the Dyalog community and are a great place to ask questions and share your expertise. 2 User Meeting 2016 Your Feedback We want to ensure that our user meetings meet (if not exceed!) your expectations, and your feedback is critical to this. The new approach we took to collecting feedback last year greatly increased the amount we received, so we'll be repeating it this year. This means that: • Each workshop will have its own feedback form, given out at that workshop. • Feedback forms on the presentations will be distributed each morning and will only cover the presentations given that day. • Feedback on the venue, facilities, social aspects, etc. can be given at any time at the Dyalog desk in the foyer of the Central Plaza. Please do take the time to let us know your thoughts on Dyalog '16 – what you like, what you find most interesting, suggestions for improvements, whether changes we've made this year as a result of last year's feedback have been successful, etc. – so that we can take these into account when planning future user meetings. Thank you Follow us on: • FaceBook (https://www.facebook.com/DyalogAPL) • LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/dyalog-ltd-) • Twitter (https://twitter.com/DyalogAPL) Useful Dyalog e-mail addresses: • [email protected] any user meeting-related issues, both technical and non-technical • [email protected] any non-technical questions related to Dyalog, for example, pricing information or licence purchase (not user meeting-specific) • [email protected] any technical questions concerning Dyalog (not user meeting-specific) 3 User Meeting 2016 Birds of a Feather Discussion Groups A Birds-of-a-Feather session is an open, face-to-face conversation with fellow user meeting attendees. It is not a presentation or lecture (there is no projector and there are no slides) or a problem-fixing session but rather a discussion, and provides the opportunity to find and engage with others who share your interest in a subject area. Each Birds-of-a-Feather session has a host who gets the discussion started and keeps it moving around the group. The host is not the person with all the answers (or all the questions). Asking questions, offering answers, exploring possibilities and sharing opinions is everyone's job! We're offering three of these discussion groups on Sunday evening. Those interested in participating should meet their host in the Lounge bar at 21:00. The discussion topics on offer are: • Functional Programming hosts: John Scholes, Nick Nikolov, Jay Foad • Native File Functions hosts: Richard Smith, Andy Shiers • Web Applications hosts: Brian Becker, Michael Bass 4 User Meeting 2016 Stormwind Simulator Some people may already know about Tomas Gustafsson's incredible Stormwind, a virtual reality boating simulator for navigation training in the complex archipelago between Finland and Sweden that is written using Dyalog APL. Tomas has adapted Stormwind for Dyalog '16 and brings us Stormwind: The Game! Following Tomas' presentation on Monday morning, the simulator and motion platform (in the Central Plaza) will be available for use; make the most of this time to get your sea legs sorted because on Tuesday evening the competition starts… Sign-up sheets for the competition are by the simulator. The competition will run at the following times: • Tuesday 18:30-19:30 • Tuesday 21:00-23:00 If this is not sufficient time for all competitors to complete a run, then the following times will also be used for the competition: • Wednesday 10:00-10:30 • Wednesday 12:15-13:15 Please read the documents by the simulator before using it and do not use it if the operator if not present. Stormwind software developed by: http://stormwind.fi/ Simulator provided by: http://www.simotion.ie/ and brought to Dyalog '16 by: http://www.optima-systems.co.uk/ 5 User Meeting 2016 50 Years of APL Dyalog '16 includes a celebration of APL's Golden Anniversary, hosted in conjunction with the British APL Association. The celebration is not aimed at just Dyalog APL (which is only 33 years old); presentations are also being given by users of other APL flavours. As well as a look at how APL has changed over its first 50 years, we'll also be seeing how relevant APL is in today's world and what its role might be in the future. In addition to the presentations, there is a display of materials from Dyalog's museum in the Central Plaza; please do have a look at what's there. Dyalog has a webpage of papers, videos, and information on APL's Golden Anniversary – see http://www.dyalog.com/50-years-of-apl.htm. If you have a photograph/paper that we can publish, a reference that ought to be included or a good story from the first 50 years, then please email us at [email protected]. Follow the Golden Anniversary on Twitter and contribute using the hashtag #50yearsofapl 6 User Meeting 2016 Schedule: Sunday 9 October 08:30 – 09:30 Registration (Dyalog desk in foyer of the Central Plaza) 09:30 – 13:00 Workshops (SA1) CookBook: Part I (11:00 – 11:30 Clyde Room tea and coffee Stephen Taylor and Kai Jaeger available) (SA2) Threading and Synchronisation Agamemnon Room Morten Kromberg and Adám